Fact: I can't start a story in earnest until I've both mapped out the emotional landscape of the story—and believe me, this doesn't even mean particulars as such, it just means that I have this amorphous actual shape or imprint in my head and under my skin that tells me what the story will feel like as a whole, how it will settle in that space in my chest, okay, dammit, I'm a freak—and, oddly enough, have a title.

Mine has to be music. I have a specific soundtrack (of about 20 songs) for each fandoms I read and/or write. If I'm not hearing the right sound track for the fandom I can't write, it's as simple as that for me. The songs I associate with a particular fandom are enough to get my brain into the right space - though it can be a problem if I hear one of the songs from "my" soundtrack out in the real world...it feels a bit like a glitch in the Matrix sometimes. :P